Life 101

The Snowball Effect Part 2

2011-11-02T15:18:00.001+02:00

The snowball effect is wonderful. Good habits just come naturally to me these days, and I haven’t even conditioned most of them. However, the caution that needs to be applied comes into play here. Snowballs rolling downhill tend to grow and grow – things much smaller than the snowball won’t stop it. If you take everything step by step and gradually set your goals higher and higher, the snowball will keep growing, engulfing the good habits and influences with ease, and rolling over bad habits and influences, leaving them behind. Place too big an obstacle in the snowball’s way (something bigger than the snowball itself) and the snowball will come to an abrupt halt. Snowballs don’t bounce back. They crash into many smaller pieces.

Set your goals too high and you might suffer the same fate as the poor snowball. You will crash, and you might end up in a worse place than before. I’m talking about serious depression. There’s no bigger let down that setting a goal for yourself and falling short. It will be even worse once you have momentum. There is hope, however.

My mother always told her children to “aim for the moon, and if you miss, you’ll land on the moon.” I’ve taken these wise words from my mother to heart recently, and started applying it to my goal-setting. What I understand from them is that you should set your goals as high as possible, and if you fail, you’ll end up better off than you were at the start.

“But that’s the exact opposite of what you just said with the snowball metaphor!”

Yes, to a certain extent. However, a bit of wisdom has taught me that my mother’s words are only valuable if you apply a bit of common sense:

Be realistic about your goals.

Don’t expect to become a millionaire tomorrow if you start with nothing. Don’t expect to lose 10 kilograms in a day. Don’t expect to get anywhere without some amount of hard work. Don't expect to live your biggest dream tomorrow. If you think these things are possible, the odds are more than likely going to be against you. Set your goals, but give yourself enough time to achieve them, and make it fun and challenging - that makes it so much easier to stay on track.

When I go to gym, I only spend about 30 minutes at most working out, on an elliptical cross trainer. The reason for the cross trainer is because I’ve found I can burn the most energy in the shortest amount of time, because it is a full body-workout, and it isn’t that tiring. I can’t get those same results from a treadmill or a stationary cycle. The only other two things I’ve experimented with that can deliver the same energy expenditure are rowing machines and stepping machines, but they make me tired a lot quicker.

When I started (two weeks ago - the day after I started this blog), I could only burn 300 calories in 25 minutes. That’s an average of merely 720 calories/hour. I was now able to set myself a goal. My initial goal was quite high - to be able to burn 600 calories in 30 minutes (1200 calories/hour). However, I did not expect to reach this the next day. The next time, however, I did the same amount in 22 minutes – upping the average to 820 calories/hour. Seeing what I was capable of made it fun, and that made me push myself harder – making it challenging at the same time.

Don’t burn yourself out.

The complication was that I’ve pushed myself too hard – my heart rate shot up to over 90% of its maximum at some stages, and once I nearly got to max (204 beats/minute) and was probably quite close to passing out. I do believe that this is how you get fit - constantly pushing yourself to do better. People on The Biggest Loser do this (with doctors nearby) so I don’t believe it’s that bad. But, I do know that it could be harmful to your heart muscles in the long run though, which is why I'd rather not take the risk and I’m now keeping my heart rate below 80% of maximum during exercise – the maximum recommended for cardio. Your heart is the most important muscle in your body – not something you want to cause damage to. Use caution when exercising and constantly monitor your heart rate.

Your body is capable of handling a lot, but be careful to push it too far. Your body is capable of going with only 4 hours of sleep a night, but if you plan on doing that every day for the rest of your life, you’ll also be planning for a breakdown or even an early death. Work hard, push yourself, but give your body the rest it needs.

Plan ahead.

As mentioned, I did not plan to reach my goal of 1200 calories/hour the very next day, or even in two weeks, as I’ve nearly done. By seeing how much I improved between the first two workouts, I got a general idea of how much I could improve each workout after that. I used this knowledge to set short-term goals (for each workout), and each time I achieved one I would increase my desired energy expenditure rate a little, until I’d reach my long term goal, which was the goal I initially set.

Set your goals high, but break it down into smaller goals. If for instance, if you want to be a millionaire in a year’s time, decide what your first step is going to be toward achieving that goal. Maybe you could start a blog and use Google AdSense like I did. Maybe you could start by selling some of your things on an auction site. Of course you don’t have to start an online business. Use whatever skills you have to achieve your goal. I believe anyone can learn any skill. However, the most important thing about business/career/working (and this is something Sir Richard Branson taught me) is to always do work that you enjoy. It’s up to you if you want to make a lot of money doing that, or not.

So coming back to the snowball - place your obstacles far enough away from your snowball so that by the time it gets there, the snowball is big enough to engulf the obstacles and not crash into it. Never forget the little obstacles in the way that help you grow.

Now that you know how to keep your growth constant, it’s time to think about what happens if you never stop growing. If you pursue martial arts you might end up unleashing a “Kamehameha” on someone (or trying to and failing badly). If you pursue a career in business you might become the next Steve Jobs (you can decide whether that is a good or bad thing – read his biography). If you pursue a career in physics you might be the next Einstein, Newton or Tesla.

You could also end up applying polyphasic sleep (something that I will probably experiment with and blog about at some later stage), spending all of your time trying to improve yourself or master skills, and burn yourself out by not giving your body the rest it needs. Or you could lose perception of reality completely and live in a “higher” state of mind. You have to decide from the start where you want to end up, and create a vision for yourself from that.

The most important thing to remember here is that you’re not only working to give yourself a lifestyle that you will enjoy. You have to enjoy every step of the growth process as well. The best part about getting to a destination is the journey itself. Don’t spend your time looking to the future; when you turn around you might find that the past has run out on you. Live each moment to it's fullest.

The snowball effect of course applies to many ways of life, especially if it involves some kind of growth or change. If for instance, you have a negative lifestyle, eating junk food, doing no exercise and smoking, you could end up being something you don’t want to be – and the extreme is being dead. It’s never too late to change though, as long as you’re still alive and breathing on your own.

All you need is something inspiring, like a person, or like this blog for instance, that inspires you to want to change, and then you need the tools to do so, which Google can provide you with if the blog can’t. Be careful though, there’s a lot of nonsense going around on the internet, and be especially cautious of products/books that claim to have discovered “the secret” to whatever it is you want to achieve, but require payment. A lot of them are simply scams or hoaxes. Find a trusted referrer/testimonial first.

The beauty of this blog is that I conduct my own experiments before I write about it, and it’s free, because I have no issue sharing the truth in order to help others. If anyone feels they want to return the favour, they can simply share the truth as well by telling others about this blog. The easiest way to do this is to click the Facebook share button at the top of any post.

If you do receive inspiration, choose your path carefully, and remember you have the freedom to change your decision at any time. If you currently suffer from the illusion that you enjoy living an unhealthy life, no one is going to force you to change. It's a choice you'll have to make for yourself. I doubt that you'll regret making the choice to improve your life though. For those that have already made the choice, just keep one thing in mind if you decide to keep your snowball growing:

With great power… comes great responsibility!

The Snowball Effect Part 1

2011-11-02T14:47:00.001+02:00

I’m currently undergoing a huge paradigm shift – changing my lifestyle by getting rid of bad habits and acquiring good ones. The way I’m doing this is by setting goals for myself, some short-term and some long-term. I've already achieved many of my short-term goals and changed many of my habits. If you don’t know where I was roughly a month and a half ago, read my first blog post. A paradigm shift like this should be entered with some amount of caution, however.

Good habits seem to complement each other very well. When I quit smoking, I started drinking the daily recommended amount of water – that in turn reduced my intake of coffee and sodas/fizzy drinks. These habit changes allowed me to sleep much better at night and have more energy during the day. After this I decided to get into the habit of getting up when my alarm goes off, which provided instant results – I was able to get up the next day with no problems. Once I saw how easy it was to achieve these short-term goals, I found it a lot easier to achieve some of my other goals that I've previously struggled with, both short-term and long-term.

One of these long-term goals of mine is to have a healthy lifestyle – lose some weight, eat healthy and exercise often. After the previously mentioned habit changes, it was easy for me to focus on losing some weight, and I’ve had great success. As I am a goal-driven person, I really enjoyed this challenge.

On a long trip I’d always calculate how many kilometres to go before I arrive at my destination – my goal. I’d also calculate average speed, how long it would take me to get there and what speed I should drive to arrive at a certain time. It gave me something to do while driving or just sitting in the car (instead of regularly asking "are we there yet?"), but its probably all because of my brain’s analytic/mathematical nature.

I’ve never bothered remembering which side of my brain is the one responsible for this, because I don’t believe in having a dominant side – I believe both sides of your brain should be equally dominant. In case you’re not sure either, it’s your brain's left hemisphere that’s responsible for analytic/logic thought, and thus mathematics. Because of my creativity and my love for art and music, I believe that my right hemisphere is equally dominant, if the image below is accurate.

So I put my left hemisphere to work and started calculating how much weight I want to lose in what amount of time, how many calories to take in and how many to spend during exercise. It helps a lot to have the Noom Weight Loss app on my mobile phone. The combination of having more time due to not oversleeping, having more energy because of not smoking, not drinking coffee and not drinking soda, thereby sleeping much better, and having much more self-discipline, allowed me to get up earlier and start going to gym in the mornings.

The total combination of removing bad habits and acquiring good ones, has put me well on my way to not only living a healthy lifestyle, but also to achieve some of the other goals I set for myself, such as improving my memory and concentration. I was quite surprised the other day when I walked out of a 4-hour meeting, having concentrated nearly the full 4 hours and being able to remember nearly everything that was said. I know I wouldn’t have been able to even sit through a 4 hour meeting before my paradigm shift. I’d probably have fallen asleep after 30 minutes. That could get awkward when there are only 5 people in the meeting. Here’s a list of some of the goals I’ve set for myself and habits I've wanted to acquire back then (roughly 5 weeks ago):

Quit smoking
Get out of bed when my alarm goes off
Get up earlier, be on time for work
Sleep less but have more energy
Reduce coffee intake
Reduce soda intake
Drink more water
Eat healthier (less junk food)
Exercise at least 3 times a week
Improve memory
Read more
Acquire some self-discipline
Start making money somehow
Learn to speed read
Learn a new language

I guess next on my to-do list is to learn to speed read! This where I am now:

I’ve been a non-smoker for the last 4 weeks. On the average day I get out of bed the moment my alarm goes off (between 5AM and 6AM), pack my things and dress for gym. Instead of 3 times a week, I exercise at least 5 times a week. I started out doing about 300 calories in one session of cardio, now I’m up to nearly 600 a day, in nearly the same time that it initially took me to do 300 – in other words I’ve become a lot more fit. I shower and get to work 15-20 minutes early.

During the day I’m able to concentrate for the full 8 hours I’m working, getting up from my desk only for bathroom breaks or to get water, of which I drink around 2 litres a day. I mostly eat yoghurt, fruits and vegetables on weekdays. Evenings I’m free to think, to socialize or to spend time with my parents (something I hardly ever did in the past). No more computer games. Before I go to bed I make sure to get in a couple of minutes of reading.

I’m having a hard time to decide which book to read though. I received a book that apparently helps you improve your eyesight naturally (Perfect Eyes). I’m fairly short-sighted but can still drive without glasses. Yesterday I had to renew my driver’s license and I knew I was probably not going to pass without wearing my glasses, so I did the eye tests with them. Obviously I’d love to improve my eyesight and get rid of my glasses altogether, however I’m quite sceptical about natural methods – it falls under the same category as acupuncture and things like that. Nevertheless, if there’s one thing these past few weeks have taught me, it’s that you can achieve even the impossible by simply believing.

Furthermore, my concentration and my memory has improved greatly (I suppose mostly just from not smoking anymore) however this is not something I can measure – you’ll have to take my word for it. I’ve started this blog and picked up writing – something I used to love doing but never made the time for. It does provide some income, but at this stage it’s not really making an impact as I don’t have a lot of readers. I owe that to the fact that I only have 4 posts so far. Apart from that, people actually have to click on ads. Also, I’ve registered as an affiliate with Groupon – the company that sells us so many nice things at huge savings. Last week I saved 60% on a coupon for a platter of sushi and calamari for two people, to be used some time within the next 3 months. I supposedly receive commission if the links from this blog (such as the image below) are followed and someone actually buys something.

I expect more people to read my blog as I start posting articles of greater value, which will be easier to do now that I’ve also achieved another goal of mine – acquiring self-discipline. That, and the fact that I’m now naturally able to manage my time a lot better, without even needing a diary. I do have to-do lists, and I write down all my ideas (especially moneymaking-related ones) but mostly I remember what I need to do and store my appointments in my head. This is much easier to do now that things are a lot more organized up there. This organization of clutter has reflected outward on my life – just yesterday I decided to do something about the state of my room and gave it a bit of a spring clean. I’ve still got a lot to do, and it doesn’t look much better but at least a part of it is better organized now. The rest will be done this weekend.

If you’ve paid attention, you’ll notice that all my positive habits have influenced each other in such a way that they all become easier and easier the more I master them. To simplify, a single habit can make it easier to master many other habits, and those habits help to master the single habit in turn. It's an endless loop. Once my habit-change has gained momentum, it snowballed.

The African Sunset

2011-10-24T19:22:00.002+02:00

I’ve recently discovered a very interesting correlation between the type of living you had when you grew up and where you like to spend your holidays. To be more specific: People living in the countryside seem to prefer going on holiday somewhere inland, either on a farm, in the bush, or in the veld, and people living in cities or large towns seem to choose to go on holidays at the sea. The same goes for where people would like to retire. Sadly, not everyone has a choice when it comes to retirement.

People that live on farms in the countryside normally don’t spend a lot of time in front of televisions or computers, possibly because they don’t have these devices. So they go to bed early because they don’t really have anything to do in the evenings. They then rise early in the morning, often before the sun does, and immediately start working. This goes for both males and females. Boys of course, being boys, will have to work physically hard. Young girls who grow up on farms are often forced, or they choose, to work and play with the boys. Others will help their mothers with their duties. Some might have a love for horses and will tend to their friends in the stables. Regardless, the culture here is to go to bed early and get up early.

In contrast, people that grow up in towns and cities do spend a lot of time with electronic devices. More and more Children spend more and more time watching television, playing computer games, surfing the internet and texting. Teens and young adults go clubbing. These days, even 8-year-olds have Facebook, twitter and mobile phones. There are many differences between people growing up in the countryside and those growing up in towns and cities, but a city-dweller’s culture will most likely be that of going to bed late and sleeping in, or at least dreading getting up the next day.

I grew up in a rather large town, close to many other large towns and not far from a big city – the beautiful city of Cape Town. When I was in school, I’d play computer games or chat until way after midnight, every night in the holidays and on weekends. I’d sleep until noon, or even early afternoon. When I was studying I’d continue this habit during the semester, and I’d go out in town with friends and sometimes (rarely) go to sleep after the sun has come up. A typical “good night out” would be to start by having a couple of drinks in a relaxed environment and as the evening progressed; we’d become more intoxicated and start going to places with louder music and more people. We’d end up buying McDonald’s at 4AM in the morning, going to a friend's flat and playing Halo 3 on Xbox until the sun came up. It was nights like these that I’d easily smoke 40 cigarettes in less than 12 hours, leaving me with an awful ashtray feeling in my mouth the next day.

Sometimes, we’d do this the night before we had class the next day at 8AM or 9AM – not a good idea. I probably didn’t go to a class after such a night even once. I would just have slept in all my classes anyway. If only I knew then, what I know now (read more about this in my first blog post). All in all I survived and got my bachelor’s degree, although it took me 6 months longer than it should have. But that is the culture of many city-dwellers.

My whole life I’d dread getting up for school, varsity, work or anything that entailed me getting up early - even things that I should’ve been excited about, such as visits to friends. I just wasn’t an early riser. Many others, who also grew up in towns like I did, have similar problems. I believe it is this culture that make holidays at the sea so appealing to us. This, and the fact that we’d spend holidays at the sea as children.

I don’t remember much about my childhood, but I do remember that we’d always go on holidays at or near the sea, and we still do. The first one I remember, being one in Hartenbos with my family. It is probably because of this holiday that that little village next to the sea is my all-time favourite place in the world, so far. I wouldn't live there though. I've often heard of Hartenbos being dead during the year, but man, during summer holidays the place is bustling! It’s alive, there’s excitement in the air. We swam in the sea, we went down the super tube/water worm, we played mini golf, we rode pedal boats in the river and we had a braai nearly every day. Everyone’s having a good time and enjoying themselves in this wonderful atmosphere. It’s difficult to describe this atmosphere, but it’s exactly that indescribable feeling that has always appealed to me.

"Surfs up," taken from the beach at my hometown (2006)

It’s not like the sea is new to me. I’ve lived in the same house my whole life (apart from renting flats when I was in varsity) and this house is quite close to the sea. I spent many sunny summer afternoons at the beach. And it used to be a really lovely beach, with the water being the perfect temperature in summer. I used to cycle there, back in my schooldays. Nowadays, we have to drive far away to find a decent, clean beach to swim at, and then there’s always the problem of the water being way to cold. That makes holidays at the sea even more appealing to me now.

When I’d go away for a weekend or on holiday to the beach, I would sleep most of the time. Of course I’d do things I wouldn’t normally do at home (or rather, shouldn’t normally do at home) such as eating ice cream and chocolates, lying on the couch half the day, having a braai, taking walks on the beach (rarely), but I’d spend my evenings watching DVDs on a laptop, texting/chatting on my phone until late at night, often after midnight, and then I’d only wake up close to mid-day, and that meant half the day was already gone. This is fine to do when you’re on holiday, though. My problem was, this routine was part of my daily routine at home as well, and that was wrong.

These days when I go away for a weekend I try to not go to bed too late, get up early, and I actually make a point of going down to the beach and not only walking on the sand or climbing around on the rocks like I used to do as a child, but feeling the sand slip in between my toes, listening to the waves rolling and crashing, looking at the horizon and taking in the beauty of that little piece God-given earth I am able to stand upon. This is what life is about for me – living in the moment and experiencing everything to its fullest potential. I try to apply this to every part of my life.

Clearly I’m a sea-person. I love holidays at the beach, especially when there’s a bustling summer holiday atmosphere in the air. But I also have a great love of nature, and especially animals, so the other side of the spectrum also entices me. I enjoy climbing up mountains, following walking-trails and ending up on very high spots where you become king of the world, as you look over fields, towns, vineyards and other mountains in the distance. The last few years I haven’t done this a lot though, because I always use the excuse “I’m too unfit,” and I probably was. I remember trying to walk up a mountain not too long ago and not being able to make the first 500 meters.

I did, however, do Suicide Gorge earlier this year. It was an amazing experience. Not really a mountain, but it's some distance that you need to walk, and there’s one part that requires quite a steep climb. Being a smoker back then, I felt like I was going to die. But it was worth it when we got to the river. The trail along the river requires you to perform a series of jumps off cliffs into pools below, one as high as 14 meters. The best part is you can’t turn back after the first two (rather easy) jumps. It’s a definite must for anyone who doesn’t have a great fear of heights. It’s called suicide gorge for a reason.

My love for animals stretches further than pet dogs and cats. I love the wild. I love the brutal strength of some of the great African animals. Here in South Africa we have what’s called The Big Five, wild beasts that can easily kill a person if they get too close, but also peaceful and beautiful creatures when left undisturbed and viewed from a distance. One of my desires is to see each of these animals at some point during my life. I’d love to get to see more of Africa, as I probably know more about Europe and America than the continent I live on. A holiday in a lodge, somewhere in the veld, with a river flowing nearby, a drinking hole where elephants and other animals come to drink, and being able to watch the beautiful African sunset behind an Acacia tree – this is something I could live with. Even retirement would be a dream in a setting like that.

Artist: Walter J Colvin

So the correlation is that city-dwellers tend to prefer the sea for its lazy atmosphere of getting up late and enjoying hot summer afternoons and the night-life. The day doesn’t start with a bang, it gradually picks up, and there’s nothing that HAS to be done. On the other hand, someone who lives in the countryside will prefer going hunting, or going on safari, or being on a farm for a holiday. Get up early and immediately start the day. Of course there are deviations and I’m stereotyping a lot, but I believe there’s some sense in my argument.

I’ve written quite a lot about me, but I hope that my descriptions of sand between your toes and sunsets behind Acacia trees will help you decide where you would rather spend a holiday, regardless of whether you’re a city-dweller or someone who grew up in the countryside. Why is it important?

I believe it might help you find yourself, and it may help you find the right partner as well. Everyone’s always searching for the right “someone” to come along and sweep them off their feet. I’m sure by the time you’re out of school you had a rough picture or a list of what the perfect girl/man for you is like (hopefully not yet as detailed as Ted Mosby’s). Everybody doesn’t think that long-term, but holidays and retirement shouldn’t be left out of one’s thoughts and plans. To some, it might not matter at all, but hopefully this article does bring some measure of insight.

I have a friend whose parents own a holiday home close to a beach in a popular summer holiday destination, as well as a farm next to a river. His father wants to retire on the farm, but his mother wants to retire by the sea. How they’re going to sort this out I do not know, but I’d like to learn from this and open myself up to be able to live with either side of the spectrum. I think in my heart I’d prefer someone who loves the sea as much as I do, but I’ll be more than satisfied to live a different life. As far as holidays go there's still room for compromise, but when you're retired you tend not to move around that much anymore (depending on who you are).

As long as I’m able to see the sunset on any day I want to, I’ll be happy. Because one thing is certain: Regardless of whether you lived on a farm, in a town or in a city, whether you love the sea, the countryside or the bush: The African sunset will always remain one of the most beautiful things you’ll ever be able to experience, no matter if it sets over the ocean, behind an Acacia tree, or over a set of powerlines…

"Electric Sunset," taken from my home (2006)

Screw it, Let's do it

2011-10-20T16:31:00.000+02:00

I’ve wanted to start a blog for a very long time, and I’ve finally decided to just do it. In fact, it was about 10 months ago, around the time I adopted my Android phone, that I first decided that I want to blog. I didn’t really know what I was going to blog about at the time – my interests were mostly limited to tech stuff. My main problem however, was not the content, it was the name. I just didn’t know what to call it. The original name (Charl Ciliers) isn’t even original or creative in any way.

The idea of blogging was put on the backburner. Recently I’ve come across some blogs that have helped me grow tremendously and inspire me to start blogging. Let me give you an outlook on where I was roughly two months ago.

I’d wake up in the morning when my alarm goes off and either snooze or simply turn it off, and then sleep/snooze for another hour or two – some days as much as five hours if I went to bed really late. Then I would go to work, and had to work very late to make up the lost hours (thank goodness for flexitime). I ate very unhealthy – pies, chocolates, cookies, sweets, chips, junk food, drank a lot of soda and hardly ever did any form of exercise. I smoked about 20 cigarettes a day, drank up to 4 cups of coffee daily, and played online games when I got home from work late at night, until late after midnight. I think it’s safe to say that I had a serious lack of proper sleep, energy, willpower and self-discipline.

Obviously I wasn’t happy. On the average day I’d be a zombie due to lack of energy and probably because of mild depression. On days when bad things happened I got a lot worse. And when good things happened, I didn’t really experience the true joy that I should’ve. Little did I know my life was about to be turned around…

The biggest issue was not being able to get up in the mornings. That annoyed me more than anything. I’d lie in bed after switching my alarm off, telling myself to get up, arguing with myself about the pros and cons of getting up or not getting up. But every time I just ended up falling asleep again.

So on one boring day at work, being the Google-fanatic that I was, I typed in the search phrase “How to get up when your alarm goes off” and trusted that Google would help me out. And that it did – I opened up a couple of links, but the first one was the one that hooked me. It was an article by Steve Pavlina (How to get up right away when your alarm goes off) that was going to tell me exactly how to do the one thing that I’ve wanted to do my whole life.

The article painted this picture in my head:

Imagine your alarm going off at 5 AM. You immediately switch it off, get out of bed, take a deep breath and stretch. You put on your gym clothes, go to the kitchen, grab something to eat and go off to exercise. You come back feeling energized, take a shower and start your working day at 8 AM.

I knew there were people that did this sort of thing, but I thought they were just machines or that it was genetic or long-term conditioning. This guy was telling me that in a matter of days I could condition myself to get up when my alarm goes off, like in the picture in my mind. This sounded too good to be true.

What was the catch? I had to spend a couple of minutes each night practicing my morning routine. To me this sounded like no catch at all. My only thoughts were how much time I’d have if I didn’t oversleep up to 5 hours every morning. I'd roughly have a full waking day extra every week. His method sounded so easy I was going to do it right away, that evening after work. But I didn’t. Due to a lack of self-discipline it took me weeks before I was actually able to start conditioning myself to get up when my alarm goes off. But when I eventually got around to trying this method, I was able to get up immediately the next day when my alarm went off.

What I realised back then was that I was the perfect candidate for change. I knew I wanted to be better. I wanted to quit smoking, eat healthier, do exercise, get up when my alarm goes off, have more energy, have more time, have more self-discipline, improve my memory and many other things. And if I can do it, anyone can. So I started a "30-day experiment".

I made one crucial mistake. I wanted to change everything right away. I wanted to get rid of all my bad habits, and install the good ones in an instant. I didn’t manage to do it. My 30-day experiment failed after less than a week. Luckily this mistake wasn’t fatal (I didn’t end up worse off than before) and I was able to recover and learn from it.

The first thing I did, and by far the easiest, was to stop smoking. My father smoked for 36 years. He then read a book (Easy Way to Stop Smoking) and as he finished it, he killed his last cigarette and never smoked again. It’s now about 5 years later. I had my first cigarette 7 years ago, and the frequency at which I smoked gradually picked up over that period of 7 years. I’ve tried quitting before, but only managed to scale down to one a day, or maybe stop for a week at a time, at most.

Even though I had access to the book for a year, I didn’t read it. I was under the illusion that I enjoyed cigarettes, and that they brought me happiness, stress-relief, something to do when I was bored, social interaction, confidence, etc. It was only when I finally decided I need to change my life, and picked up that book, that I realised how wrong I was.

Today, nearly three weeks after finishing the book, I met a friend for lunch and he asked me if I wanted to sit outside to smoke. I looked at him like he was from another planet and replied “I don’t smoke.” It feels great to be able to say that. Easy Way To Stop Smoking really did change my life.

Along with that I got rid of my coffee "addiction". I had headaches at first but I’m fully over the caffeine addiction now. At work I sit near a filter coffee machine which gives off pleasant coffee aromas, which I enjoy, but I don’t ever feel the need for a cup. Instead of getting up 3 times a day to make coffee, I now fill a bottle with water 3 times a day. Previously I hardly drank any water at all, now I drink the equivalent of 6-8 glasses every day.

I tried conditioning myself to start exercising, to get up earlier, to eat healthier, and to try and change all the things I had problems with. It didn’t work. What I realised much later is that changing your habits is like playing chess (Habit change is like chess) and I was trying to pull off a Scholar's mate.

Changing one thing at a time, however, works brilliantly. Quitting smoking was the first step to my success. It was a small, easily-achievable goal. Small as it is, it gave me enormous confidence. From there it snowballed. I knew that if I could stop smoking, I could do all the rest. I simply needed to research the rights tools for the jobs and take it one step at a time. That was my first step towards self-discipline, and I cannot begin to express how much that first step has improved my life so far.

Apart from now seemingly being able to get up earlier and having more time and energy, I’m always positive, happy and content. That doesn’t stop me from wanting more though. To the contrary, seeing what I’ve achieved so far has given me new strength to achieve even more. And that is why I’ve started this blog.

I’m currently reading Screw it, Let’s do it by Richard Branson. It’s a very short book, but I’m a slow reader and I only allocate a couple of minutes a day to reading at this stage so I read about a chapter a day. What it has taught me so far is to stop doubting myself, to be bold, and to have fun – to live every day to its fullest potential.

I want this blog to help other people like other blogs and literature helped me. If I can help one person to get up when his/her alarm goes off I'd have achieved something. If I can help one person to stop smoking I’d have achieved something great. But if nothing comes from this blog, at least I’m having fun writing. I used to love writing, but just didn't make the time for it. I haven’t written anything out of free will that comes even close to 1600 words in years.

I can’t go back and change my past, and I don’t want to. The mistakes I’ve made have helped me grow as a unique individual. However from this point onward, I can make a success of my life. I can live life to its fullest. Throughout the course of the next few months I will be setting many goals for myself and documenting my findings here on this blog. Maybe, just maybe, my experiences might help at least one other person to improve his/her life.

If not, then I hope at the very least I can provide some interesting reads.